Volume 41 Number 3

Dear Friends,

Wow. What a harvest of plums, damsons and apples this year; probably many other fruits and vegetables as well. It is just these are the fruits we have in our garden and we don’t seem to have stopped picking them off the trees and sadly off the grass.

 

So what has happened? A very poor year last year to a bumper crop this year. They are in the same position so are in the same soil, so why the difference?

Many answers have been forthcoming like the amount of rain, the months the rain came in, the sunshine, yes we have had sunshine!

The snow on the ground earlier in the year and the pruning that took place before fruiting began. Whatever it is all or any of the above, it is that the environment this year has been different insome way to last year.

Environment. We‘ve heard so much about it in the last year with climate change, global warming and all that means but environment is so important. No or little rain, no or poor crops. No or little sun, no ripening of the crop. Yes, the  environment in which we plant our crops, our fruit trees is so important as is the tending of that environment.

So we come to our lives. We are as much products of nature as the fruit trees and crops. Our lives are influenced by our environment.  Is your environment an environment with love or hate at its core? Is your environment an environment of warmth or cold?

Is your environment an environment of peace or hatred?

Is your environment one of hope or failure?

Is your environment one of trust or fear?

We all need the warmth of the sun in our lives. We all need laughter surrounding us. We all need a positive vision, route map for our lives.

Yet our environment often does not seem to provide what we need. So what do we have to do. We need to take things in hand.

Just in the same way individuals and countries are attacking the causes of global warming by seeking to change the way we affect our environment so we in our spiritual lives need to change our ways.

Replace that hate with love.
Replace that cold with warmth.
Replace that hatred with peace.
Replace that failure with hope.
Replace that fear with trust.

It’s too hard, too difficult I hear you say, and it is on your own. So change your environment this harvest time. Put Jesus Christ and all that he can do for you at the centre of your life. Give your life a chance to fulfil itself with a bumper harvest so that not only you but all those around you as well can be fed.

Have a bumper harvest in all its aspects.

God bless.    Graham